


The Secret Garden

by thescouticus



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Disney Shipping, Gardening, Gen, Hypochondria, Ill-tempered children, Parental Neglect (past), Secret Garden AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 22:45:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8641090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescouticus/pseuds/thescouticus
Summary: AU Based on the classic children's novel by Francis Hodgeson Burnett.
After her parents die in an epidemic in East Beforus, sickly, spoiled Porrim Maryam is sent to live with her distant relative, in his gloomy, sprawling old house, nearly all shut-up and locked, and from which Mr. Vantas himself seemed to be constantly fleeing. 
In the process of adjusting to her new life, Porrim might uncover the secrets of the old house, and sweep out the cobwebs not only from her own young brain, but also from the old manor's hidden secrets.





	1. There is No One Left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dr34m3rgurl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dr34m3rgurl/gifts).



> For something completely different, here's a near-completely-innocent fanfiction. Don't think too hard about the way everyone is related to each other, just don't. There is no sense, I just out characters together to fit roles.

When Porrim Maryam came to live with her uncle at Misselthwaite Manor, everyone said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a thin little face, and a little thin body, thin, limp hair, and a sour expression. Her face was sunken, and her skin was sallow, because she had always been sick in one way or another.

Her father had held a position under the Beforan government, and as a result, she had been born there. He was always busy and sick himself, and this had neither the time, nor the desire to raise a child, and her mother had been a beauty, who cared only to go to parties and socialize with people whom could further her husband's career. As neither of her parents had particularly wanted a little girl, once she was born, she was passed into the care of an East Beforan nurse, who was made to understand that if she wanted to please her employers, she was to keep the little girl as quiet, and out of the way as possible.

When she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby, she was kept out of the way, and when she was a fretful, sickly toddler, she was kept out of the way as well. She never remembered seeing anything but the faces of her nurse, and the faces of the other native servants, and since they had always obeyed her, and given her her own way in everything, since the Mistress would be angry if she heard her crying, by the time she was 3 sweeps old, she was the most selfish, tyrannical little brute that ever lived.

The West Beforan governess who was brought in to teach her how to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her job in three months, and each governess that came to try to fill in left in a shorter time than the first. It was easily a statement of fact that if Porrim had not decided that she wanted to read books, she never would have learned her letters at all.

One morning when she was about five sweeps old, she awoke very unhappy, and became more unhappy still when she saw that the servant by her bed was not her nursemaid. "Why are you here? I won't let you stay! Send my nurse to me!"

The servant did not answer, and only said that it was not possible for the nurse to come, and when Porrim flew into a passion, and beat and kicked the mattress, the servant looked more frieghtened still, but only repeated that it was impossible for the nurse to come.

There seemed to be something unusual in the air that morning, and nothing was done in its usual order. There seemed to be several servants missing, and those she did see either slunk or hurried, with ashy and scared faces, but no one would tell Porrim anything, and the nursemaid did not come. She was actually left by herself as the morning went on, and eventually she made her way outside, and began to play by herself under a tree in the garden.

The longer she played by herself, the more sour she became, and she actually began to mutter to herself, planning what she would do, and what names she would call her nursemaid when she returned. She was grinding her teeth, and saying insults over and over again, when she heard her mother's voice come out into the gardens.

She was with a fair young man, and they stood together, speaking in strange, hushed voices. She had seen the fair young man, who looked like a boy, and crept closer to listen from behind a bush sporting bright red blossoms. She stared at him, but she stared most at her mother, because the Grand Missus, which is what Porrim called her most out of anything, was such a talk, slim, pretty person, and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk, and she had a delicate little nose, which always seemed to be disdaining things. She had large, laughing eyes, and all her clothes were thin and floating, and seemed to be full of lace.

They were fuller of lace than ever this morning, but this morning her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared, and lifted desperately up to the boy officer's face.

"Is it... Is it really that bad?" She asked the officer, hands wringing together.

"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Maryam..." He told her, arms linked behind his back, "You should have gone to the hills two weeks ago."

"Oh, I know I should have... I only stayed to go to that damned dinner party... What a fool I was!" She cried, and at that moment, a wailing cry from the servant's quarters interrupted them, and Porrim saw her mother clutch the young man's sleeve and shiver from head to toe. "What is it? What is it?" She asked, panicked.

"Someone has died." answered the boy officer, "you didn't say it had broken out among your servants."

"I did not know!" Cried the Grand Missus. "Come with me! Come with me!" She begged, and dragged him by the sleeve into the house.

After that, awful things happened, and the events of the morning were explained to her. The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form, and people were dying like flies. Her nursemaid had come down with it in the night, and been carried away. She had just died, and that was why the servants had wailed in their quarters.

Before the next day, three other servants had died, and others had fled in terror. There was panic on every side, and people dying in all the neighboring homes. During the panic and confusion of the second day, she hid herself away in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone, and alternately slept, and cried away the hours. She only knew that people were sick, and that she heard mysterious and frightening sounds. No one had the time or inclination to think about a little girl no one liked.

At one point, she wandered into the dining room and came upon a meal that seemed to have been abandoned. There were half-eaten meals on the table, and she ate a little bread and some fruit, and being thirsty, she drank a glass of wine. It was sweet, and she didn't know how strong it was, and it quickly made her intensely drowsy, so she went and shut herself in the nursery again, and knew nothing for a very long time.

Many things happened while she slept, but she was not disturbed by them any longer, and remained curled up in her nursery among the sounds of panicked voices, and of things being carried in and out of the house.

When she finally awoke, she sat up in her bed, and marveled at the silence. She'd never known the house to be so still. She heard neither voices, nor footsteps, and wondered if the everyone had gotten better, and all the trouble was over. She also wondered who would take care of her now that her nursemaid was dead. There would be a new nursemaid of course, and perhaps she would know some new stories. Porrim had been rather bored with the old ones.

She did not cry because her nurse had died, as she had never been an affectionate child, and had never cared much for anyone. She only cried because she had heard strange noises that scared her, and because she was angry that no one seemed to remember that she was alive. When people had the cholera, it seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves. If everyone had got well again, certainly someone would remember and come to look for her, but no one did come, and the house only seemed to grow more silent.

"It's so quiet in here." She said, frowning. "It sounds like I'm the only one left in the house."

Almost the next minute, she heard heavy footsteps come into the house, heavy men's boots walking into the house, followed by the sound of low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them, and they seemed to be just opening doors and looking into the rooms.

"How sad..." One voice said, getting closer to the nursery, "That pretty, pretty woman. I guess the child, too."

"I'd heard there was a child, but no one ever saw her." Replied another voice.

Porrim was standing in the middle of the room, looking an ugly, cross little thing when they opened the door a few minutes later. She was frowning at them, mostly because she was starting to be hungry, and was feeling unforgiveably neglected.

The first officer nearly jumped out of his skin when he opened the door and saw her standing alone in the middle of the room. He called out to his companion, "Barnie! There's a child here! A child, all alone! Who is she?"

Porrim scowled at not having been addressed, and looked at him. "I'm Porrim Maryam. Why have none of the servants come?"

"Barnie! It's the child that no one ever saw." He lowered his voice as the other footsteps came closer. "She actually been forgotten."

Even crosser at being ignored, Porrim stamped her foot. "Why does nobody come? Send my servants to me!" 

The second man had the presence of mind to speak to her., and she thought she saw him blink as if to blink tears away. "Poor little kid... There's nobody left to come."

It was in this abrupt way, that Porrim Maryam learned that she had neither of her parents left. They had been taken by the cholera during the night, and the few native servants who were left had fled the house in terror, none of them even remembering that there ever existed a Young Mistress of the house. It was true that before the officers had come in, there had been no one but her in all the house.


	2. Mistress Mary(am), Quite Contrary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next steps in Porrim's journey.

Porrim had liked to look at her mother, and had thought she was very pretty, but as she knew very little of her, she could hardly be expected to love her, or even to miss her very much once she was gone. She did not miss her at all in fact, and as she was a self-absorbed child, she gave all of her thought to herself, as she always had done. 

If she had been older, she would have been very anxious at being left alone in the world, but she was very young, and as she's always been taken care of, and had things her own way, that's how she assumed things would always be. What she would've thought, was to wonder if she was going to nice people, who would be polite to her, and who would give her her own way as her nursemaid and the other native servants had done.

She knew she was not going to stay with the clergyman and his wife whom she had been taken to stay with at first. She didn't want to. The clergyman was poor, and he and his wife had five children nearly all the same age, who were always making noise and quarreling or snatching toys from one another, she did not like them, and they did not like her, and after the first day or so, she was so sour and cross to them that no one would play with her.

By the third day, the children had given her a nickname that made her furious. It was Vriska who thought of it first. Vriska was a little girl with impudent blue eyes and a turned-up nose, and Porrim hated her.

She'd been playing in the dirt the same way she'd been doing the day the cholera broke out, making little heaps of earth and sticking flowers into them. Then, Vriska had gotten quite interested in her playing, and leaned over to point.

"Why don't you put a heap of stones there and pretend it's a Rockery?"

"Go away!" Porrim shrieked, pushing Vriska's hand away, "I don't want to! Go away!"

For a moment, Vriska looked angry, but then she began to tease. She was always teasing her brothers and sisters. She danced around Porrim, and sang and made faces and laughed. She sang:

_Mistress Mary, quite contrary_  
_How does your garden grow?_  
_With silver bells and cockle shells_  
_And marigolds all in a row!_

___She sang until the other children heard and began to sing and laugh, too, and the crosser she got with them, the more they sang it, and for the rest of the time she stayed with them, the children called her "Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary" when they spoke about her, and often when they spoke to her._ _ _

___"You're going to be sent home at the end of the week, and we're happy about it." Vriska announced to her._ _ _

___"I'm happy about it, too!" Said Porrim, then paused, "Where is home?"_ _ _

___"She doesn't know where home is!" Said Vriska, with seven-year-old scorn. "It's the West, our grandmama lives there, and so does our sister, Aranea. You're not going to your grandmama, you have none. You're going to your uncle. His name is Mister Karkat Vantas."_ _ _

___"I don't know anything about him!"_ _ _

___"I know you don't. You don't know anything. Contrary people never do. I heard father and mother talking about him. He lives in a old, dreary, desolate house in the country, and no one comes near him. He's so cross he doesn't let them come near him, and even if he did, they wouldn't come anyway. He's a hunchback, and he's horrid."_ _ _

___"I don't believe you!" Said Porrim, and she turned her back and stuck her fingers in her ears, because she would not listen any more._ _ _

___But she thought over it a great deal, and when the clergyman's wife took her aside and told her that she was going to sail away to England in a few days to her uncle, Mr. Karkat Vantas, she looked so stony and unresponsive that she didn't know what to make of her. They tried to be kind to her, but Porrim only stood stiffly when the clergyman patted her shoulder, and turned her face away when his wife tried to kiss her._ _ _

___"She's such a plain child... And her mother was such a pretty creature. She had a very pretty manner, too. Porrim has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a child." She'd told her husband later that night. "The children call her 'Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary', and though it's naughty of them, you can't help understanding it."_ _ _

___"Maybe if her mother had carried her pretty face and manners into the nursery more often, Porrim might have learned some pretty ways, too." Her husband offered, "It's sad, now the pretty thing is gone, and very few remember that she ever even had a child at all."_ _ _

___"I believe she seldom ever looked at her," she sighed, "Once her nursemaid was gone, there was no one to give a thought to the poor thing. Think of the servants running away, and leaving her all alone in that deserted house! The colonel said he almost jumped out of his skin when he opened the door and found her standing all alone in the middle of the room."_ _ _

___ _

___Porrim made the voyage to the West in the care of an Officer's wife, who was taking her own children to leave them in a boarding school. She was very much absorbed in her own little boy and girl, and was quite happy to turn her over to the care of the woman that Mr. Vantas had sent to meet her in London._ _ _

___The woman was his housekeeper, and her name was Mrs. Serket. She was a stout woman, with very red cheeks, and sharp black eyes, and a blue dress. Porrim did not like her at all, but as she very seldom liked anyone, that was nothing remarkable. And either way it was fine, because Mrs. Serket made it quite evident that she did not think much of Porrim._ _ _

___"My word, she's a plain little piece of goods..." She said, "And we'd heard her mother was a beauty. She hasn't handed much of it down, has she, Madam?"_ _ _

___"Perhaps she will improve as she gets older." The officer's wife said, good-naturedly, "If she were not so sallow in her face and had a nicer expression, her features are rather good. Children alter so much..."_ _ _

___"She'll have to alter a great deal. And there's nothing likely to improve children much at Misselthwaite, if you ask me."_ _ _

___They thought Porrim was not listening because she was standing a ways apart from them, at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. She was watching the passing people and taxis and carriages, but could still hear rather well, and presently became slightly curious about her uncle and the place he lived in. What was kind of place was it, and what would he be like? What was a hunchback? She had never seen one. Perhaps there were none in East Beforus?_ _ _

___Since she had been living in other people's houses, and had no nursemaid, she had begun to feel a bit lonely, and she'd began to think strange thoughts which were new to her. She had begun to think about how she'd never really seemed to belong to anyone, even when her father and mother were alive. She'd had servants and toys and food and clothes, but she'd never really seemed to have been anyone's little girl. Other children seemed to belong to their mothers and fathers. She did not know that it was because she was a disagreeable child, but then she did not know that she was disagreeable. She often thought that other people were, but she did not know that she was so herself._ _ _

___She thought Mrs. Serket, with her highly-colored face, and her fine bonnet, was the most disagreeable person she'd ever met, and on the next day's walk over to the railway station, she's kept her head held high, and tried to distance herself as far from the woman as possible, not wanting to seem to belong to her. It would have made her angry for other people to think that she was her little girl._ _ _

___Mrs. Serket was not the least bit disturbed by her and her thoughts. Mrs Serket was the type of woman who 'would take no nonsense from young ones'. Or at least, that was what she would have said if she had been asked._ _ _

___She had not wanted to go to London in the middle of winter, but she had a comfortable, well-paid place as housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor, and the only way she could keep it was to do at once whatever Mr. Vantas asked if her. She never even dared to ask a question._ _ _

___"Captain Maryam's wife has died of the cholera." Mr. Vantas had said in his cold, clipped way. "Captain Maryam was my wife's brother, and I am their daughter's guardian. The child is to be brought here, you must go to London and bring her yourself." and so Mrs. Serket had packed a small trunk and made the voyage._ _ _

___Porrim sat in her corner of the railway carriage, and looked plain and fretful. She had nothing to read or to play with or to look at, and she folded her thin little black-gloved hands in her lap, and her black dress made her look yellower than ever. Her fine, thin hair struggled to her shoulders from under a black hat._ _ _

_____A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life...__ thought Mrs. Serket. Marred is a Yorkshire word, and it means spoiled, and pettish. But eventually Mrs. Serket got tired of watching her, and began to speak in a prattling way._ _ _

___"I suppose I might as well tell you something about where you are going. Do you know anything about your uncle?"_ _ _

___"No." Said Mistress Maryam._ _ _

___"Never heard your mother and father talk about him?"_ _ _

___"No." She said again, frowning. Her mother and father had never spoke to her about anything. Certainly they had never told her things._ _ _

___"Hmph." Mrs. Serket snorted, evidently unimpressed as she eyed Porrim's plain, unresponsive little face. She went silent for a few seconds, before starting again._ _ _

___"I suppose you might be told something, then, to prepare you. You're going to a queer place."_ _ _

___Porrim said nothing at all, and Mrs. Serket seemed disconcerted at the lack of any interest the girl seemed to have any of what she was saying._ _ _

___"Not that it's not a grand old place, in a gloomy way. And Mr. Vantas is proud of it in his way. And tha's gloomy enough, too, to fit it. The house is 600 year in and it's on the edge of the grounds, and there's near a hundred rooms in it, though most are shut up and locked. There's pictures and fine old furniture and things that's been left for ages. And there's a big park around it, and gardens and orchards, and trees with branches trailing to the ground, some of them."_ _ _

___She paused and took a breath. "But there's nothing else." She finished, quite abruptly._ _ _

___Porrim had begun to listen in spite of herself. It all sounded so unlike East Beforus, and anything new vaguely attracted her, but she did not intend to look as through she was interested, and that was one of her unhappy, disagreeable ways, so she sat still._ _ _

___"Well?" Mrs. Serket prodded, "What do you think of it."_ _ _

___"Nothing." Porrim said. "I know nothing about such places."_ _ _

___That made Mrs. Serket laugh a short sort of laugh._ _ _

___"Tha's a queer, old-womanish thing. Don't you care?"_ _ _

___"It doesn't matter whether I care or not."_ _ _

___"That's true. It doesn't. What you're to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor for I don't know, if not because it's the easiest way. He won't trouble himself about you. He never troubles himself about anyone." She stopped herself, as if she had just remembered something in time._ _ _

___"He's got a crooked back." She said "That set him wrong. He never made nothing of all his money and big place until he was married."_ _ _

___Porrim's eyes turned towards her, despite her intention not to seem to care. She had never thought of hunchbacks being married, and she was a tad surprised. Mrs. Serket noticed this, and as she was a talkative woman, began to go on with more interest. This was one way of passing some of the time, at least._ _ _

___"She was a sweet, pretty thing, and he'd have walked the world over to get her a blade of grass she wanted. Nobody thought she's marry him, but she did, and people say she married him for him money, but she didn't. She didn't. Positively. When she died-"_ _ _

___When she heard this, Porrim gave an involuntary little jump, "Oh- Did she- did she die!?" She'd just remembered a fairy story about a hunchback and a beautiful princess, and it made her suddenly sorry for Mr. Vantas._ _ _

___"Yes, she died. And it made him queerer than ever. He cares about nobody, and he won't see people. He stays away most times, and when he is at Misselthwaite, he shuts himself up in the west wing and won't let anyone but Pitcher see him. Pitcher's an old fellow, but he took care of Mr. Vantas when he was a child and he knows him ways."_ _ _

___It sounded like something in a book, and it did not make Porrim feel cheerful. A house with nearly a hundred rooms, most of them shut up and locked, a house on the edge of a moor- whatever a moor was- sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also. She pressed her lips shut, and as if with her mood, rain began to pour down outside the window in gray, slanting lines._ _ _

___If the pretty wife had been alive, she might have made things somewhat cheerful by being something like her own mother and swishing about to go to parties in frocks full of lace. But she was not there anymore._ _ _

___"You shouldn't expect to see him, because ten-to-one, you won't. And you shouldn't expect there to be people to talk to. You'll have to run about and play by yourself. You'll be told what rooms you can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of. There's gardens enough, but inside you're not to go wandering and poking about. Mr. Vantas won't have it."_ _ _

___"I shall not want to go poking about." Said sour little Porrim, and just as quickly as she had started to feel sorry for him, she ceased to be sorry for Mr. Karkat Vantas, and began to think he was unpleasant enough to deserve all that had happened to him, and turned back towards the window, and watched the rain outside stream down the windows like it would never end, until it lulled her to sleep._ _ _


	3. Across the Moor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mistress Maryam arrives at the manor.

Porrim slept for a long time, and when she awakened, she found that Mrs. Serket had bought a lunch basket at one of the stations, and they had some chicken and some cold beef and some bread and cheese and some hot tea.it seemed to be raining more heavily than ever, and everyone at the station was wearing wet and glistening waterproofs. The attendants lit the lamps of the railway carriage, and Mrs. Serket cheered up quite a bit over her cold chicken and beef, and ate a great deal, and then fell asleep herself.

Porrim watched her bonnet slip on one side, and then the other until she fell asleep once again herself, in the little corner of the carriage, lulled by the steady noise of the train going over the tracks and the rain splashing over the windows.

It was dark when she woke again. The train had stopped at a station, and Mrs. Serket was shaking her and said, "You've had a good sleep, now it's time to open your eyes. We're at Thwaite Station, and we've got a very long drive ahead of us."

Porrim stood and tried to keep her eyes open as Mrs. Serket bustled about and collected their parcels. She did not offer to help, because in the East, native servants had always picked up and carried things for her, and it seemed to her quite reasonable that other people should wait on her. The station was a small one, and no one else seemed to be getting out of the train. Mrs. Serket stopped and spoke to the station once they had gotten off, pronouncing her words in a strange, broad fashion which Porrim found out later was Yorkshire.

"I see tha's got back." He said good-naturedly, "And tha's brought the youngun wit' thee."

"Aye, that's her." Mrs. Serket said, tilting her head to indicate Porrim, speaking with a Yorkshire accent herself. "How's thy Missus?"

"Well enou'. The courier's waiting by the gate for thee, ready to go."

Porrim saw that there was indeed a carriage waiting for them by the station, and that it was a smart carriage, and a smart footman who helped her into the carriage and loaded their parcels. His long raincoat was glistening wet with rain, as was everything, including the station master, and as the footman settled onto the box with the horse-driver, for the journey, she found herself in a comfortably cushioned corner.

She was not inclined to go to sleep again, having finally wakened up, and instead peered out the window, curious to see some of the road over which she was being driven. She was not at all a timid child, but thought that anything might happen in a house with a hundred rooms nearly all shut up, standing on the edge of a moor, whatever a moor was.

"What is a moor?" She asked Mrs. Serket suddenly.

"Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see." The woman answered. "We've got to drive five miles across Missle Moor before we get to the manor. You won't see much because it's a dark night, but you'll see something."

Porrim said nothing else, but sat looking out the window impatiently. The lanterns illuminated a small distance around them, and she saw a little village as they went through it. She saw whitewashed cottages and the lights of a public house, and a shop or two with toys and sweets in the windows and odd things set out for sale. After that, she saw hedged and trees, and after that nothing seemed different for a long time, at least to her it seemed like a long time.

At last, the horses seemed to go slower, as if they were climbing up a slope, and there were no more hedges and no more trees. In fact, she saw nothing but a dense darkness on either side. She leaned forward and pressed her face against the window just as the carriage hit a big jolt.

"Eh, we're on the moor now, sure enough." Mrs. Serket said. The yellow lantern light shone only enough to illuminate a rough road, which seemed to cut through low-growing things, which ended at the great expanse of darkness on either side. The wind was rising, and made a low, rushing sound as they went, the rain falling nearly sideways against the carriage from it.

"It- it's not the sea, is it?" She asked, whiling around to look at her companion.

"Eh, not it. Nor is it mountains or fields or forest. It's just miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but broom and gorse and heather, and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep."

"I feel as though it might be the sea... If there were water on it, perhaps... It sounds like the sea, just now." Said Porrim, sitting back down.

"That's the wind blowing through the bushes. It's a wild, dreary enough place in my mind, though there's plenty that likes it, especially when the heather's in bloom."

They drove on and on through the heavy darkness, and though it stopped raining, the rain kept on, whistling through the bushes and making strange noises, and a few times the carriage drive over a wooden bridge underneath which water rushed very fast, and with a great deal of noise. Porrim felt as if the drive would never end, and as if she were crossing a wide strip of black ocean, on a narrow strip of dry land.

'I don't like it.' She thought crossly, and pinched her lips closer together. 'I don't like it.'

The horses were climbing up a long stretch of land when she finally saw a light, and Mrs. Serket saw it less than a moment afterward, and drew a long sigh of relief. "Eh, I am glad to see that bit of light twinkling. That's the light of the lodge window. We'll have a good cup of tea after a bit, most likely."

It was after a bit, as she said. After they passed through the gate, there was still two miles of avenue to drive through, and the trees and bushes in this part of the land made her feel as though she was driving through a dark vault. They finally got clear of the trees, and she finally caught sight of her new home, Misselthwaite Manor.

It was a great big, low-built, long house, which seemed to ramble around a stone court. At first she thought that there was no lights at all in the house, but as she got out, she saw that there was a soft, dull glow coming from one of the upstairs rooms on the corner of the house.

The entrance door was massive, made of oddly-shaped panels of oak studded with heavy iron nailed, which opened with a great noise of protest, into a hall which was so dimly-lit that the faces in the portraits and the empty suits of armor made her feel that she did not want to look at them. From where she stood stiffly in the hall, she looked at very small, odd little black figure, and she felt as small and lost and odd as she looked.

A slim man stood by the footman who opened the door for them, and he looked at Mrs. Serket without much care for her. "You are to take her to her room. He doesn't want to see her. He's going to London in the morning."

And the Mistress Maryam was lead down a long corridor, and up at short flight of steps, and around a few confusing turns, until she found herself in a room with a fire and a supper in it, laid out on a table, and Mrs. Serket said unceremoniously, "Well, here you are. This room and the next are where you'll live, and you must keep to them, you remember that."

It was in this way that Mistress Maryam found herself introduced to Misselthwaite Manor, and she had perhaps never felt so contrary in her life.


End file.
